Wednesday, November 14, 2012

"....Faced
with a popular consensus in Israel and political backing in the US Congress for
a hard line with the Palestinians, Mr Obama is an unlikely champion even of the
Palestinians' ambition to win observer status at the United Nations. A vote on
this matter is currently scheduled for November 29, with Mahmoud Abbas
apparently hoping that the anniversary of the 1947 UN partition plan for
Palestine will provide emotional resonance. Predictably, the US and Israel have
threatened economic retaliation if the statehood bid proceeds.....

The reality is that the White House is stuck with an Israeli government, with
or without Mr Netanyahu, that rejects an agreement with the Palestinians. As
tensions flare again on the Israel-Gaza border, as they did in the run-up to the
last Israeli election, it looks disturbingly like four more years of the
same."